Announcement About MagnaCare (and a Little Rant About Other Insurance Companies)

Magnacare

I am now an in-network provider of a new health insurance plan: MagnaCare.

I’m also an in-network provider for MVP, Value Options, Tricare, Military One-Source, Compysch, and EBS-RMSCO.

In case you aren’t up on insurance terminology, in-network means I am able to bill the insurance company directly for you. When I am out-of-network, you have to pay me first and then submit claims for reimbursement. Sometimes they reimburse, sometimes they don’t, depending on your policy.

I have applied to be in-network for every insurance plan I have come across, but most limit the number of providers they will work with so they can control them better. Consequently, many people who need mental health services have a hard time finding providers who “take” their insurance. This is not the provider’s doing, it is the insurance companies that limit access to their networks. Many states have “any willing provider” laws that require insurance companies to work with any licensed provider the consumer chooses. That is not the case in New York, however, where the insurance companies hold all the cards.

It’ll stay that way until people talk to their insurance companies about expanding their provider panels, or talk to their employers about choosing insurance plans with real access to care, or talk with their state legislators about giving consumers the right to chose who they see for therapy.

The Shrink’s Links: Loving My DID Girls

Bringing you the best of mental health every week.

the-three-faces-of-eve-1957
Sam has been married more than 25 years to a woman with multiple personalities, now called dissociative identity disorder.

That might make him a virtual bigamist, but he is loving and accepting of all of them.

This is his blog.

Loving My DID Girls

 

The Shrink’s Links: Mating in Captivity

Bringing you the best of mental health every week.

Lions mating

Mating in Captivity

A few weeks ago, I brought you her Ted Talk, which I had first discovered. I was so taken by the hypothesis she presented that I went out and bought her book, Mating in Captivity. I was not disappointed.

Why does sexual desire diminish in many long term relationships? It diminishes precisely because the relationship is working. She writes:

Sexual desire does not obey the laws that maintain peace and contentment between partners. Reason, understanding, compassion, and camaraderie are the handmaidens of a close, harmonious relationship. But… Aggression, objectification, and power all exist in the shadow of desire, components of passion that do not necessarily nurture intimacy.

So, how do you put the X back into sex without being one of those couples that fight all the time and fall into bed when they make up?

She argues that, instead of always aspiring to be close, couples should cultivate their private sense of selfhood, a personal intimacy to counterbalance intimacy with the partner. Cultivate your own garden, in other words.

Here’s how it works: The balancing act between being close to your partner and being true to yourself is as simple as breathing. You want until you have, and then you let go. Then you want again.

The Shrink’s Links: Colleen Klintworth

Bringing you the best of mental health every week.

Today I want to introduce you to:

Colleen KlintworthColleen Klintworth

Colleen Klintworth, CASAC, MHC-LP, will be working with me as an intern, with her own clients, using my office on the weekend and a couple of days during the week.

The laws pertaining to counselors in New York State are extremely rigorous and infuriatingly split into separate regulations concerning substance abuse counseling and mental health counseling, as if the two fields had any reason to be divided. Colleen already has a great deal of experience in the substance abuse field, she has even been a supervisor; but she lets nothing get in the way of treating her clients in an holistic manner. Therefore, to work in mental health and establish a private practice, she must meet the requirements to be a mental health counselor and come to work with the likes of me.

Her soft southern accent belies the years she spent in North Carolina, raising a family. Like most good therapists, this is her second career. She started off as an editor. Undoubtedly, she will help her clients re-author their own stories and develop sides of their own characters they never knew they had.

Click here to go to her site.

 

The Shrink’s Links: The Yellow Birds & Fire and Forget

Bringing you the best of mental health every week.

cat on computer
Today, we have a double shrink’s links. Two links for the price of one. Two great books of fiction I recommend about America’s recent war experience:

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
and
Fire and Forget Edited by Roy Scranton and Matt Gallagher

In both cases, the authors are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Yellow Birds is a novel and Fire and Forget a collection of short stories written by a collection of writers. Nearly all the narratives follow a warrior returning home broken and finding he doesn’t fit in, after knowing the horrors of war. I believe they offer a pretty accurate depiction of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and an incisive exploration of the problems reintegrating veterans into society.

But, I have a question. It seems like no war story can be published today without PTSD being a major theme. I admire these writers for coming home and writing about their experiences. But, I really want to know: are they writing about what they want to say, or what we are prepared to hear?

When did Post Traumatic Stress Disorder dominate over other aspects of war? When I think of other literature from past conflicts, there are other narratives. In The Iliad, warriors are preoccupied with becoming immortal by the renown of their glorious acts. The Red Badge of Courage focuses on, well, courage. Gone with the Wind, the civilian side of war. Joshua, on loyalty to God. War and Peace, All’s Quiet on the Western Front, and A Farewell to Arms gave us realistic depictions of battle, but little about the aftermath. Catch 22, the absurdity of the military. What I remember of The Naked and the Dead is the descent soldiers take into bestiality. In other novels, the authors deal with friendship, confrontation with other cultures, religious conviction, the inexorability of fate, love and longing, disobedience of authority, etc. Any theme that can be presented in literature has been presented in war literature because war pushes everything to the furthest degree.

I think it’s safe to say that some veterans of every war returned traumatized by what they saw and did. There is nothing new about PTSD even though the disorder has only been named and categorized since Vietnam. I’ve been told that in the past, the sufferers of PTSD were marginalized, their bravery questioned, their voices silenced. Clearly, that was wrong and it would be better to fully understand the costs of war before we consider going to another war. But, come on; do we give our veterans a service when we presume that they are going to be messed up, when their madness is highlighted over their courage?

I’ve seen quite a few veterans in my office. They come in for every problem that people can have. In some cases there’s PTSD, but in every case there are other stories to tell. Can they tell all there is to tell? Can we listen to it all?